Does anyone else out there just get so frustrated about food?  I can't imagine going through life without my favorite foods,drinks...yet I hate having an anaphylactic reaction.  I really can't find a certain food trigger....some foods are fine one day and not the other.  Histamine free diet really limits a lot of my favorite foods and I looked at the foods high is salicylate (sp?)....not a lot left to choose from.  I guess I'm still in denial because I don't want to be on meds for the rest of my life and I want to be able to eat my favorite foods....what about quality of life?  I guess I just needed to vent.  I can't expect my kids and wife to follow this restricted life, but at the same time it is really hard for me not to eat normal food and seeing them makes it harder.  Why does this have to be happening?  For those of you who have been battling this for years, I know I must sound like a big baby.  I should be happy that I'm alive....but I miss my old life where I didn't have to carry an epi pen and could eat and do whatever I wanted without problems.  Anyone else able to relate?

  What Lynda says is true, and I'll add that your diet may end up being less restricted than you think right now.  You're in a big flare and that means you have to go back to square one with diet and lifestyle modifications, as well as get on appropriate dosages of meds to become stable.  Once you do, you'll probably find that you can tolerate many things that you can't stand right now.  When you find that foods trigger you one day and not another, there are two possibilities.  One is that your metaphorical "bucket" of triggers is full and one more thing will cause it to "overflow" and trigger your symptoms.  The other is that your digestive system is so messed up from the mast cells triggering that you need to heal it first before you can even know what foods really trigger you.  If food is your primary trigger, you might want to see a mast cell disorder specialist who knows about GI associated mast cell problems.

  Eventually, you'll be able to know when your "bucket" is getting too full with mast cell triggers and when to retreat back to a safer diet.  I can sometimes eat many foods I couldn't eat at all at first.  I was able to eat almost everything on the table at Thanksgiving.  I hiked 4 miles today (seemed like all uphill, but I made it and didn't trigger!).  One of your tasks now is to figure out when to take more meds if you're going to be exposed to things you can't yet tolerate.

  Once you get past feeling sad and deprived, you'll be able to work yourself into a diet that will allow you to feel better and that also will taste good.  It's amazing how foods that used to taste great will start tasting bad once you connect them with feeling awful.  When I cook, my family eats what I can eat.  We're much healthier because we cook from scratch, and I don't think anyone would complain at this point.
 
  However, it's been a number of years for me, and you're at the beginning.  As someone once said to me, "Raise your hopes and lower your expectations," and you'll be less likely to be disappointed.  The low histamine diet is a jumping off point for those who are very ill.  You may find that once you feel better, you can add foods back in, at least occasionally, without increasing your symptoms.

  Not to say I don't still have cravings.  Sometimes I see my husband eating brie cheese and drinking wine or beer, and it bothers me.  Some days it's still hard to order food at restaurants without the poor server having to make 10 trips to the kitchen to make sure ingredients are okay for me.  But, you'll learn to look up recipes and how to alter them to fit the diet that keeps you feeling well.

 Am I saying not to feel sorry for yourself?  NO!  We all do at times.  Some of us are at a point where we are now able to focus on living our lives instead of on being ill.  It takes time.  

  If you rest, make the dietary changes, and see a specialist to get your meds fine-tuned, you'll be surprised that how you feel will turn around.  Has this turned your life upside down?  Of course.  Are you going to have to adjust your focus and priorities?  Yes.  Will there be some good things to come out of this?  There certainly can be.

  I don't mean to sound cheerful about having this disease.  I'm not.  There are occasional dark days.  Still, I'm grateful that I found out the information I needed to live a relatively normal life and to feel good a lot of the time.  Could be worse.

On a practical note... when you feel like you're starving (been there, done that!) it helps to eat foods that are high in calories.  For example...

- An avocado
- Boiled potato with a generous topping of clarified butter
- Nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew, etc...) on a rice cracker or even just lick it off a spoon
- A "smoothie" made with a can of full-fat coconut milk (800 calories) plus a little bit of whatever fruit you can tolerate (blueberries, peaches, banana, etc...)... seriously filling
- Dates (300 calories per serving)
- Homemade trail mix with nuts and whatever dried fruit you can tolerate (organic, not the stuff loaded with preservatives)

All of these are low-histamine.  Aside from the nuts, they're also quite allergen-friendly.  Speaking from personal experience, your willpower will be stronger if you don't feel so hungry and deprived!  It's a matter of finding some new "favorite" foods that you can tolerate and really savoring them.

Heather